Legal Ground of Right to Information Act in Turkey: Evaluations of Implementation Results Between 2004-2014


ÖZTEMİZ S., YILMAZ B.

TURKISH LIBRARIANSHIP, cilt.29, sa.4, ss.687-706, 2015 (ESCI) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 29 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2015
  • Dergi Adı: TURKISH LIBRARIANSHIP
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM)
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.687-706
  • Hacettepe Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Right to information act, as a requisite of participatory democracy and transparency applications in public administration, is a legal regulation that helps the government go public. Right to information not only builds up liberties like freedom of thought and expression that are adopted by democratic communities, but also has major importance on using fundamental rights and freedoms. The purpose of this study is to set forth the current functioning of the act in Turkey by evaluating of application results between the 2004, year of inurement and 2014. Data of the study was acquired from "General Information Reports" and statements of Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Study findings show that; the number of applications on knowledge acquisitions made between 2004- 2014 and the number of people who got positive responses, are increasingly continuing year by year. Results confirmed that in the last 10 years period, citizens who want to use right to information on its legal basis have exceeded 15 million. On the other hand, it's also determined that the number of individuals whose requests were declined and objected to jurisdiction increased every year. When the assessment is made concerning the institutions, Ministries, Prime Ministry, Governorships and The Council of Higher Education were among the top ones that receive information requests. When the comparison is made related to the information requests between 2004 and 2014, the result is that Supreme Election Board, Court of Account and Presidency had the highest increases in the two years of comparison. The situation, which reflects individuals' effort to access to the information about themselves and public, gives rise to the idea that applications based on Right to Information Act, can be assessed in a positive manner, in terms of democratization process.